Dealing With Specific Kinds of CrimeThere can be specific dynamics for different kinds of crimes in Act I stories.

a. When dealing with homicide. Special considerations for Act I stories involving homicide include—

i. Avoid the inadvertent death notice. Check with your editors (and follow up with the police, if necessary) before approaching family members of a homicide victim to make sure they have been notified by police. Even when reporters are cautious, they can find that the person they reach on the telephone or who answers the door has not been notified of the death of a loved one. In those cases, the reporter must—

Verify the identity. Check with the person who answered to make sure you dialed the right number or have the right address. Keep asking questions until you verify that you have the right family. (One reporter did not find that he had contacted the wrong family until he asked the fifth question designed to verify the identification.)

Apologize and acknowledge that your information could be faulty. Perhaps there has been an error on the part of law enforcement or there is a mix-up of some sort. Reporters should apologize for the problem and promise to help the family find out what has happened.

Share information and discuss next steps. Assure the person you will follow up. Give the individual the names of law enforcement agencies and officers to contact. (Make sure the person gets something to write down the information or he or she may forget what you said when you hang up.) It also helps to ask if the person is alone. If the person is, encourage him or her to ask a family member, neighbor, or friend to stay with him or her to provide support and, in cases in which an assailant has not been apprehended, tend to any safety needs or concerns.

Follow up. Make sure that the family receives accurate information from the appropriate authorities, either through their efforts or yours.

ii. Focus on life, not death. Instead of talking about the death of a loved one, it is preferable to talk about celebrating or honoring his or her life.

iii. Use care when asking for a photograph or video of the deceased. The request must be done sensitively. It is also imperative that the reporter take personal responsibility to ensure that the photo or videotape is returned to the family intact. Scan or dupe a copy before the item leaves your sight at your news organization. You will also earn a reputation for thoughtfulness if you provide a copy of your coverage to the family.

b. When dealing with sexual assault and rape. The trauma that sexual assault and rape inflicts on victims, as well as the stigma still associated with the crime, makes reporting on victims of sexual violence especially daunting. It is important for reporters and editors to understand that sexual assault is not a crime about sex but about violence, power, and control. Journalists should avoid reporting details about the assault in ways that imply the victim’s behavior caused the crime (walking alone at night, drinking alcohol). Important as well is that news articles do not treat acquaintance rape as less serious than so-called “stranger danger” cases. Remember also that the preferred term is acquaintance rape rather than date rape, since the latter implies a romantic relationship where none may have existed and where the existence of any such relationship is irrelevant to the crime.

There are usually few instances when a news organization will try to interview a sexual assault victim immediately following the crime. Most news organizations also have a policy of refusing to reveal a victim’s name without explicit permission. Some victims may agree to an interview only if their actual name is not used, or if an alias is provided in lieu of their real name; it’s important to remember that this is the victim’s choice. However, there are situations in which it can be more difficult to keep the victim’s name confidential.

i. Abductions. A news story about a disappearance can evolve into a case of sexual assault or rape during the breaking news cycle. The case in February 2007 involving the young boy abducted in Missouri later discovered at the home of a convicted child molester along with a boy who had been missing for years highlights the problem of keeping identities confidential. It is usually best to stop using the victim’s name once the sexual assault becomes the focus of the story unless the victims and their families give permission.

ii. Incest. News organizations also need to exercise special care so that reporting the name of the perpetrator and the nature of the crime in incest cases does not thereby reveal the name of the victim. Some editors ignore such concerns because they insist that people in smaller communities know the names anyhow, so the newspaper need not take special precautions to protect the victim’s privacy. However, editors should consider that, especially in today’s online news world, archived news stories can be accessed by people inside and outside that community for years to come.

c. When dealing with domestic violence. Part of the dynamic that keeps many victims from coming forward and reporting their victimization to police stems from feelings of shame, combined with fear that others will find out what has happened to them. One of the most difficult situations that newspapers face is when domestic violence results in a murder-suicide. News organizations that treat the perpetrator who commits suicide as a victim risk offending family and friends of the murder victim.

d. When dealing with drunk driving. Organizations such as MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) have helped dispel the myth that drunk driving is not a crime. Victims are justifiably upset when news accounts minimize cases of drunk driving that may or may not have harmed others, since the crime always has the potential to claim lives and cause injury.

e. When dealing with potentially vulnerable populations. Reporters should exercise special care when interviewing people at both ends of the age spectrum, from young children to the elderly. Some children are simply too young to be subjected to re-living their experiences during interviews without the danger of inflicting additional harm. Young children also risk being more easily manipulated by inadvertently leading questions. Experts who debrief children about their victimization for law enforcement agencies and courts receive extensive specialized training in how to interview child victims without revictimizing them or inadvertently eliciting false statements. Reporters without such training are ill-equipped to do a good job and should not be expected or ordered to do so. Elderly people and people with disabilities may also have unique needs, especially with Act I stories when the trauma is fresh.

This document was prepared by Justice Solutions under grant number 2002-VF-GX-K013, awarded by the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this document are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.